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Old 01-09-2013, 05:18 PM
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Wbulk Wbulk is offline
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: American Fork, Ut
Cobra Make, Engine: 66 Cobra
Posts: 930
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Default Lesson Learned

1. Anytime you buy a narrowed axle or one that has had major welding on the tubes for brackets and such, from any company, bolt the rotors on the axles and measure between the rotors top and bottom, and front and back. If I had done that when I got it I would have seen the housing was bent 1/4".
2. Be cautious when buying a narrowed or modified axle from a company if modifying axles is not a primary function of the business. They may not have the expertise to insure that it is still straight and they may not even check it before shipping.

Cost Of Learning This Lesson
The first time I pullled the axle was to fix the welded-on caliper brackets that were made wrong, and fix the coil-over mounts that were made too short for the supplied shocks that came with the kit. One edge of the brake pads was hanging over the rotor about 1/4" on both sides. The total time to pull the axle, fabricate and fix these items was approx. 12 hours.
The second time I had to pull this axle was when I found the housing tubes were toed in. Total time to pull the axle and strip it down to a bare housing was 4 hours. Time to build a shipping crate was 1 1/2 hours. Cost of materials for the crate, $23.00. There will be another 4 plus hours to assemble the axle and re-install it.

Cost for shipping to Corona Ca., $69.00. Cost to have the axle straightened and shipped back $115.00.

Total out of pocket $207
Total labor 21.5 hours

Lesson Learned!
__________________
Wayne

"Everything is alive. If you get angry at a vehicle or the trans, it won't fix until you apologize and say you are sorry." "The vehicle always knows what it is doing and what the cause of it's bad feeling is. If you ask it humbly what the problem is, it will tell you. Then you and it will both be happy."

Gil Younger
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